President Donald Trump's newly proposed Space Force uniform has sparked comparisons to Nazi military attire as the science fiction movie Starship Troopers inspired the design.
President Donald Trump will be at the center of this week's GOP midterm convention. Many of his fellow Republicans are hoping he doesn't make it all about him. The parade of lawmakers, candidates, donors and party officials now headed to Dallas for the two-day spectacle are counting on Trump to make a compelling pitch on the national stage before voters hit the polls.
Your LG smart TV may be doing far more than displaying your favorite shows while it sits "off" in the corner of your living room. A new investigation from Gamers Nexus, conducted alongside Level1Techs and independent security researchers, alleges that certain LG OLED televisions continue to scan home networks and capture microphone audio even in standby mode, then upload that data once the set reconnects to the internet.
Americans are becoming increasingly wary of food recalls, with new polling showing that safety warnings are changing not only how consumers view recalled brands but what they are willing to buy afterward. read more
Workers' share of U.S. income has already fallen to its lowest level on record, while corporate profit margins keep breaking records quarter by quarter. read more
ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok all went down at once; enterprises need a backup plan
www.computerworld.com
... Thursday's outages across the three services highlight an uncomfortable reality: Enterprises are automating work faster than they're planning for AI failures.
Enterprises are facing a disturbing new question in the age of AI: What happens when agentic assistants go dark?
This became a very real scenario on Thursday, as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and SpaceXAI's Grok near-simultaneously, and somewhat mysteriously, experienced significant, prolonged outages.
Beginning in the morning, Eastern time, several ChatGPT models went down over a roughly two hour period, Claude models over a four-hour span, and Grok models for a near three-and-a-half hour duration. All three companies acknowledged the "elevated" issues and applied fixes. ...
Nvidia's Jensen Huang says 'AGI has arrived' after OpenAI GPT-6 Astra rollout for which Sam Altman said 'sorry'
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
... Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has congratulated OpenAI following the debut of its latest frontier model, Astra, and declared that artificial general intelligence (AGI) has finally emerged.
Taking to social media platform X, he celebrated ChatGPT-maker's rapid technological progression while highlighting that Astra was developed using Nvidia's advanced hardware.
The term AGI refers to automated systems capable of equaling or exceeding human cognitive abilities across various domains. ...
@#5 ... how long before AI takes over? ...
OpenAI chief scientist warns no-one is prepared for consequences of AI
www.bbc.com
... OpenAI's chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has called for "extreme caution" over AI's runaway progress and warned more intervention may be needed to ensure "humans remain in control of the future".
"I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence," he wrote in a blog post entitled "An Alien Mind". ...
Fact Sheet: Costs of Iran War (August 2026)
www.americanprogress.org
... The Trump administration's war in Iran has cost at least $1,200 per household. With no end in sight, American families are paying a price. ...
US diesel prices hit record high as conflicts intensify supply crunch
www.usatoday.com
... Average U.S. diesel prices jumped to record highs on Thursday, as a global supply crunch intensified after renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran and on disruptions caused by Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, a major source of diesel exports. ...
Industry watchers warned that already-elevated prices could climb further as seasonal demand picks up. Farmers harvesting crops in the Northern Hemisphere, combined with preparations for planting in the Southern Hemisphere, are expected to boost diesel consumption in the coming months. Demand for heating oil, a distillate fuel similar to diesel, also typically rises ahead of the winter heating season.
Higher diesel prices can ripple through the broader economy because the fuel is widely used in trucking, agriculture and industrial activity. This boosts transportation and production costs that can ultimately raise food prices, Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said. ...
"Farmers and truckers typically use more diesel in the autumn, which raises the stakes for the current crisis and increases the risk of sharper price increases," he said. ...
Is Trump's $1 coin now on sale a legal tender? What the law says
www.firstpost.com
... The US Mint has begun selling the 2026 Donald Trump $1 coin, a legal-tender issue marking America's 250th anniversary. Rolls of 25 cost $61, while 100-coin bags cost $154.50. The coin has a $1 face value and features Trump alongside the Presidential Seal as part of the Semiquincentennial programme ...
The coins are also available online at the website of the US Mint, although as of Thursday, the product was unavailable or on back-order due to rising demand.
Because the coins are sold at a premium above face value, the US Mint is categorising them primarily as collectible numismatic products, even though they are legally minted as circulating currency. ...
@#15 ... "A nuclear power plant produces power for decades; the nuclear waste it leaves behind will remain lethal for 10,000 years. Put on a blackboard the year the EPA has determined these materials will be safe, 11,993" ...
Yup.
Apropos tune ...
John Hall - Plutonium Is Forever (1979)
www.youtube.com
Supposedly, on Sept. 14th, his aides will release more info.
Former Fetterman staffers vow to release inside details about senator's conduct as Democrats pile on
americantribune.com
... A group of anonymous former staffers for Sen. John Fetterman launched a public campaign promising damaging revelations about the Pennsylvania Democrat's work habits, and his own party's elected officials are lining up to demand he resign.
The group, calling itself "Former Fetterman Staffers," created an X account and announced it will begin posting inside details about Fetterman's conduct starting September 14, 2026, the day the Senate returns from summer recess. The move follows a Wall Street Journal report that described Fetterman routinely blowing off constituent meetings, neglecting legislative review, and declining to make in-state public appearances, Fox News Digital reported.
The former staffers did not hold back about their intentions or their timeline.
"We're a group of former campaign & Senate staffers for John Fetterman who are disgusted with what he's become. If you were troubled by yesterday's Wall Street Journal story... trust us, that's just the tip of the iceberg."
They added: "It's even worse than you thought." And in a jab at Fetterman's attendance record, they told followers to set their calendars for September 14, then added, "Let's be honest, maybe the 15th: he'll skip Monday's votes." ...
@#5 ... Florida is supposed to be under water already. ....
Not really. Subject to higher sea levels, yes. But under water? No.
Miami-Dade wants to raise thousands of homes, offices above floods. Here's where (August 2026)
www.miamiherald.com
... The federal government says it will cost $4.5 billion to elevate and floodproof more than 3,000 homes and buildings in Miami-Dade, part of a massive plan to help protect the region from the stronger hurricanes and higher sea levels of the future.[emphasis mine]
A newly issued plan from the Army Corps of Engineers, the construction arm of the federal government, calls for raising thousands of homes, including more than a thousand in Homestead and more than 400 each in Cutler Bay and Miami Beach. It also covers protecting 275 businesses and crucial government buildings from rising waters, including fire stations and wastewater treatment plants. ...
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